Ryan won the vote to succeed outgoing Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) with 236 votes, well above the 218 needed for a simple majority. But nine Republicans voted instead for Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), a long shot who was the only other Speaker candidate going into the GOP's closed-door nomination vote on Wednesday.

Webster, like Ryan, did not vote in Thursday's election. Although in January, during Boehner's reelection to the House's top job, Webster voted for himself.

Webster won three fewer votes on Thursday than he did in January, but he did win 43 votes on Wednesday, meaning that some Republicans who backed him in the secret-ballot election switched their votes to Ryan on the House floor.

The conservative Freedom Caucus initially endorsed Webster for Speaker earlier this month in a move that contributed to Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's (R-Calif.) decision to abandon his bid for the job.

By the end, it became clear that Ryan had secured more than enough votes to win the election, a contrast with the narrow vote in January, when 25 Republicans voted against Boehner. In the last moments of the roll call, the final, 236th vote came from none other than the outgoing Speaker.